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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24405583">bloom</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/glowingjellyfishtreelights/pseuds/glowingjellyfishtreelights'>glowingjellyfishtreelights</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Flowers, Gen, a different take on a silent link, and the things you nurse in your heart</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:48:30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,621</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24405583</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/glowingjellyfishtreelights/pseuds/glowingjellyfishtreelights</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Vines lace his lungs, flower in his throat, and between them they steal his words.<br/>But that’s okay.<br/>He doesn’t mind, really- it’s a lovely thing, nourished from his life, and he’s never been much of one for chatter, anyway.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>51</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>bloom</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/19781251">Vaster than Empires (And More Slow)</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanthia/pseuds/Kanthia">Kanthia</a>.
        </li>

    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Link is four when he stops talking, the seed in his heart shyly starting to sprout.</p>
<p>It’s a subject of confusion and worry, for his mother, but his father ruffles his hair and tells her not to worry- when Link wants to talk, he will. </p>
<p>Link doesn’t want to, doesn’t think he’ll ever want to- with the unwavering certainty of a child cored with something distinctly <em> other </em>and unspeakably ancient, he knows down to his bones that if he speaks, he kills something beautiful.</p>
<p>He doesn’t know what it is, or why it would be so horrible should it die- he simply knows that something, somewhere, is alive, starting to grow, and to let a sound escape his throat would mean its death.</p>
<p>So Link grows, and so he continues to keep his words carefully cradled in his chest. And as he grows, so too does the sprout, sending out questing roots, growing stronger. He shapes words with his hands and arms, sculpts their meanings in the air, and these, too, strengthen the little sprout- like the casting of old, spent leaves, fallen to the ground, joining the loam. </p>
<p>When his sister is born, small and loud with sunshine-bright hair, he carefully presses words, one letter at a time, into her tiny hand- she is so very small, so very delicate, and he worries that her shrieks and cries and laughter will starve her. So he shares his silent words, hoping that they will feed her as well.</p>
<p>(At this age, he is too young as of yet to realize that not everyone is bound by the same unspoken rules he is.)</p>
<p>His sister grows like a weed, from a delicate seed to a laughing, chattering, hardy young girl. She is very loud- Link is not. There is no fragile, ephemerial being’s life bound to her words. Maybe it’s a disappointment- maybe it’s not. Maybe it doesn’t matter at all- she is still his sister, even if they do not have the same hearts.</p>
<p>But when they run to the woods together, older, stronger, playing in the dappled shade, she refuses to wear shoes. She never wears shoes, in the same way Link never speaks- with deep horror at the very thought of doing otherwise.</p>
<p>In the woods together, Link takes deep breaths of forest air, feeling the ghostly tickle of new, tiny leaves just starting to unfurl in his lungs. His sister stands barefoot in the shallows- eyes closed, swaying in the breeze. Something of the current- of the silt under her feet- it feeds her. He can tell. </p>
<p>He doesn’t know what it is that lives in her heart- what she’s feeding, by always leaving her feet bare to the earth.</p>
<p>He never asks. </p>
<p>(There are things in the world that break if you talk about them. Things that leave forever. Things simply never meant to be talked about- for speaking of them ruins them forevermore.</p>
<p>Link, even so young, knows that this is one of those things.)</p>
<p> </p>
<p>And suddenly, the world changes from beneath their feet.</p>
<p>Off to Zora’s Domain, Link gets whisked along with their father. Link meets the thought of leaving home with curiosity, but concern for what he’s leaving behind- his mother fell ill, this last year, only just started to get back to her feet after months of weakness, and one small girl can only do so much to help keep up with a house.</p>
<p>His father is unhappy about having to leave, huffs about it, drums thick fingers against every surface. But there is not much he can do, when confronted with a King’s order- this is how Link learns that once, his father was a knight, retired to an old injury and raising a family. </p>
<p>Link doesn’t know, or care, much about a King. Link is not entirely sure what a King must be- simply that his father cannot refuse it, and that causes him pain.</p>
<p>Link has a very strange, sudden thought- does a King, too, have something it cannot do?</p>
<p>Should a King speak, would something lovely die?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Link meets Mipha, and finds that she nurses a spark of gentle light in her chest.</p>
<p>It is like him, like his sister, but not- he knows, now, that this lovely thing he is feeding with his words lives inside him, that its life started in the shelter of his heart, that as he grows, it climbs, reaching for his lungs, tickling his ribcage with the gentle brush of new leaves.</p>
<p>Mipha’s light is a <em> light </em>- when she is near, when she calls her light to her hands and makes it soothe away the hurts of others, the leaves all turn to bask in it, like sunlight, leaving him warm and drowsy and content, for surely, bathed in this gentle light, he is safe.</p>
<p>Mipha laughs when he turns into a little puddle of happy Hylian child in her lap, scooping him up and returning him to his father. He pouts, but allows it- after all, his father is warm and safe, too, even if the leaves in his chest do not turn to him like he is the sun.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Link is older, vines halfway latticed up his lungs, when he feels the pull.</p>
<p>He tips one last handful of berries into his basket before standing up, hand pressed to his chest. The pull does not cease. It feels like a gentle tugging at the roots in his heart- it feels like a humming urgency in his fingers and his feet- it feels like knowing that he must never, ever speak. It feels as young as a new sprout. It feels as unspeakably ancient as a forest.</p>
<p>It feels like a call, and answering it is an unthinking instinct etched deep into his bones.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In a clearing in the Lost Woods, the Master Sword stands tall and proud and gleaming, and when Link lays hands on her hilt, he is knocked breathless.</p>
<p>There is a light, holy and golden, in this blade, and in his chest there is a surge of vibrant <em> life </em>- vines grow and tangle and race to the tops of his lungs, leaves budding and unfurling and growing in full in the pauses between heartbeats. In the scant seconds it takes for him to draw the sword from her slumber, there is the start of a bud beginning to swell at the base of his throat.</p>
<p>Koroks chime and rattle excitedly at him, little seeds themselves. Link lets himself fall down to the grass, and listens to the Great Deku Tree and his children tell him about the Blade of Evil’s Bane.</p>
<p>In his hands, the sword continues to put off a gentle light- subdued, compared to the flood of before. </p>
<p>Still, every leaf cradled in his chest turns to face her light.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Link is a good deal older, there are three unopened buds in his throat, and he has learned what a King is.</p>
<p>The King of Hyrule does not have a light or a sprout in his chest- he does have <em> something, </em> but it is not strong. It struggles- it is deprived. Maybe once, it was strong, but in the years since what strengthened it, fed it, gave it life, has been taken away.</p>
<p>And deep in the heart of his daughter, Princess Zelda, there is a spark only a strong breath away from dying.</p>
<p>Link never stopped to think, when he was younger, exactly what would happen should he open his mouth, form a word from sounds and breath, and release them onto the air- he was too caught up in the sheer horror at the thought, in the knowing what harm it would cause.</p>
<p>Now, he is older. And he has nothing but time to think.</p>
<p>If he began to spoke- if he stole from the lovely thing inside his chest what it used to feed, to grow- it would starve. But it is older, too, just as he is- stronger. It would not be an instant death, a swift one.</p>
<p>It would be a leaf dropping. Two. Three. A wilting vine. Roots, searching desperately for a fertile source from which to pull, thirsting and starving at the same time. The buds in his throat, withering away, never to open.</p>
<p>Eventually, it would all rot.</p>
<p>Eventually, all he would have left would be barren earth.</p>
<p>It scares him in a soul-deep, visceral way. Like death, reflected in the eye of a moblin, like the hot, rancid breath of a Lynel, like- like-</p>
<p>Like the Princess, barefoot and up to her waist in water, carrying out a ritual which does nothing to feed the spark in her heart, eyes hopeless and frantic, like she <em> knows </em>- as if she knows just how close her little spark is to dying out forever. </p>
<p>The eyes of a dying woman, clawing for anything that could be her salvation, but everything crumbling to ash under her hands.</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>Years and years have passed, but Mipha’s light still feels like warmth and home and gentle sunshine.</p>
<p>Even with her, the buds in his throat do not bloom, but under her light a fourth joins the others, a gentle, soft brush that announces its creation with a teasing tickle for just a fleeting moment as he breathes. On top of Ruta, Mipha smiles, all sharp and sweet and razor teeth, and her clawed hands are so very gentle as her light pours into his blood. Roots drink deep, every leaf turned to her, rather than the sword still glowing upon his back- for between Mipha and the Blade of Evil’s Bane, it is Mipha’s light that is closest to the warmth of the sun.</p>
<p>You could burn yourself to ash, spending too long standing in the light of the Master Sword. He thinks, with the deep, ancient certainty that has haunted some of the most important things in his life, that people have. That many have been burned up, burned away, crumbled to nothing, by laying hands on this blade, and many will again, long, long after he is gone.</p>
<p>He wonders- will this light burn him too, in the end? </p>
<p>Will he, too, be left to wilt under the blaze of her harsh, merciless radiance?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Daruk has a budding volcano in his heart, and with every booming laugh the magma swirls under the stones.</p>
<p>The proximity of the heat tends to make him wilt, if exposed too long. Link isn’t afraid of being burned by him, however- Daruk is wide smiles, and jovial back-slaps, and a sheepish inability to control his own strength in the heat of the moment. But he is also gentle, handling fragile Hylians; a comforting hand the size of Link’s entire torso, placed with care upon his back; a shield, conjured from the will to protect, sheltering those more crushable than he.</p>
<p>Daruk is stone. But stone does not exist solely to tumble in rockslides, to violently erupt from awoken volcanoes; stones shelter, trap coolness in their depths, become covered in moss and lichen. </p>
<p>Link was not made for these volcanic slopes. Roots dry out- leaves droop- vines wilt.</p>
<p>He visits anyway. He is not so fragile, anymore; trial has begun to strengthen him, rather than cut him down to nothing.</p>
<p>With every visit, he grows.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Revali nurses a hurricane in his chest, and it howls fit to tear his roots clean from his chest.</p>
<p>Link doesn’t know Revali well. Revali is angry, and arrogant, and shoots like a legend made flesh and feathers. He is strong. Stronger than any Rito- stronger by far. And working- always, always working, stoking the hurricane in his chest to a shrieking, tree-toppling frenzy.</p>
<p>Revali can’t stand him. Link doesn’t know if it’s truly that he bears the Sword of Evil’s Bane and that Revali does not, or if perhaps this is simply a case of conflicting nature- Link is happy to remain rooted, to keep steadily, slowly growing in the sunshine. </p>
<p>Revali wants to take to the skies- to fly harder and higher than any other Rito there ever was. </p>
<p>Revali wants to be a storm. </p>
<p>He’s already more than halfway there.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Urbosa has lightning trapped in her heart, lancing through her blood with every beat.</p>
<p>Link can’t help but be wary of that sparking, dancing heart- lightning strikes where it will, and often, its will is to strike down what stands out. Trees or buildings, usually- but in a landscape where neither dominate, even low-clinging growth may be struck.</p>
<p>A laugh dances silently in Urbosa’s eyes at his unease. She strokes a fond hand slowly through the sleeping Princess’s hair- she doesn’t stir, so deeply exhausted, like a tired child taking respite in her mother’s arms. </p>
<p>Lightning is powerful, and dangerous, and so very impossible to predict. It’s not known for gentleness, but then, who ever said that what it is that you carry in your heart must be everything you are?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>There is a Hero, in the old story, and Link is supposed to be him, to be the chosen one to take up his legacy- silent and strong and the slayer of evil.</p>
<p>Link doesn’t feel like much of a hero. The only thing he and the man from legend have in common that he can tally up besides wielding the same blade, he thinks, is that the Hero, too, was said not to speak.</p>
<p>Link has five buds in his throat, now. He could not speak, even were such a thing not an unthinkable act to him- vines have claimed his lungs and his ribs as their trellis, and roots have laced themselves so deeply throughout his core that he thinks to tear them out would take everything he is with them.</p>
<p>Did the man from ancient legends, too, have something living off the words he did not speak? Or is it Link, alone, who has turned his body to a fertile land by leaving his words unsaid?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Monsters appear more than ever before, seemingly an endless supply from the shadows. In the palace, there is frantic work to activate every last Guardian- there is unease thick in the air. No one has said anything. There are no overt oppressive signs. No indicator that the end is drawing near.</p>
<p>The urgency persists.</p>
<p>A sixth bud appears, but still, none of them bloom. </p>
<p>The Princess’s tiny spark dims by the day.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>The Princess turns seventeen, and her desperation has reached its peak.</p>
<p>The dying woman knows her fate. She is past the point of reaching out, grasping desperately for a lifeline- now, she knows she cannot be saved.</p>
<p>Only-</p>
<p>Only-</p>
<p>
  <em> Only- </em>
</p>
<p>-she is not the one that ends up dying, this night.</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>Link dies in a torn, muddy field, chest cleaved open by a Guardian’s gaze- roots torn and smashed, vines ripped and broken and snapped, and in his last breaths, one final, seventh bud comes quietly into being, and on the final, rasping, weak exhale, they all unfurl into bloom.</p>
<p>Every tattered, trampled leaf in his chest has turned weakly to face the blinding, brilliant light that is Zelda’s heart. In potency, it eclipses all else- overwhelming, the blooming gold, the core of the sun itself, still so radiant even as the world dims, his eyes slowly closing, yet still, he traces the last dancing glimmers of light until-</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In a field gouged open to the weeping skies, a Hero closes his eyes.</p>
<p>Even as he fails to open them- even as the Princess breaks into sobs and curls over his body- even as the Blade of Evil’s Bane, broken and dim, begins to whisper- the torn remains of the lovely thing he had sheltered in his heart reach for the sun.</p>
<p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p>
<p>But this is not the end.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>the starting idea for this got sparked off of kanthia's amazing fic Vaster than Empires (And More Slow), and if you've read it you'll probably instantly be able to tell which line it was that inspired me.</p>
<p>EDIT: 11/18/2020 okay so since this actually does pretty well by itself and part two looks like it's going to be. WAY bigger than I thought it was, this is getting marked complete and if I ever get around to writing/finishing part two, it'll be a series-type thing and I'll be posting it as a separate fic/sequel instead (and I'll delete this note when that happens). thank you for your understanding and patience!! :D</p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24611434">Child of the Sea</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ellenar_Ride/pseuds/Ellenar_Ride">Ellenar_Ride</a>
    </li>
  </ul>
</div></div></div>
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